Russian History: A Very Short Introduction

The demands of workers were very similar, since, after all, many of them were peasants working away from home, and even those who were not felt a common sense of oppression. Understandably, they showed greater concern for political rights and somewhat less for questions of land tenure; and they had specific demands, such as the eight-hour working day, the right to strike, ‘normal’ wages, and the right to participate in factory management.

Altogether, the demands of workers and peasants showed how far ordinary Russians had advanced towards an understanding of general political problems and felt entitled to participate in their solution. No less remarkable were their modes of self-organization and action in 1905–6. They based themselves on their traditional collectivities to devise new forms of association and direct – sometimes violent – action. Peasants met in their village assemblies to consult on the most appropriate steps: some decided to harvest the landowner’s crops, fell his timber for their own use, or graze their cattle on his meadows; some refused to provide labour for his estate; some went further and raided the manor house, taking everything they could use and expelling the owner, then in many cases burning down the house so that he could not return. Usually they insisted on acting unanimously and together, so that if the authorities re-established control, they could not single out ringleaders.

Industrial workers called meetings first of all at factory level, but then in many cases elected delegates to a city-wide ‘Council of Workers’ Deputies’ – a soviet – to decide whether a general strike was needed, to organize it if so, and to take over municipal government while it lasted. Here, at enthusiastic but stormy meetings, held in a large hall or even on a river bank, workers thrashed out a common policy together. This was the closest to direct democracy that could be implemented in practice: all workers usually had the right to attend soviet meetings, to speak if not to vote, and to recall their delegates if they proved unsatisfactory. The largest soviet, that of St Petersburg, chaired by SD Lev Trotsky, ordained a general strike in October 1905 which quickly spread to other cities. It was decisive in forcing the Tsar to make serious political concessions.

Soviets were effective, then, in channelling workers’ desire for resolute action. But they had a serious downside. Village assemblies worked well because they were reasonably compact. Urban soviets were huge and chaotic affairs, products of improvised organization in a crisis, and difficult to convert into stable institutions. That made it easy for demagogues or well-organized political parties to take them over – a fateful weakness, as we shall see, in 1917. Here the absence of in-between associations mediating between people and government made itself painfully felt.

The State Duma

Under pressure from the revolution, in October 1905 Nicholas II launched much the most ambitious attempt yet to create an institutional link with ordinary people. In the October Manifesto, he announced the creation of a State Duma, a legislative assembly to be elected by a multi-stage procedure which included most of the adult male population but gave more direct representation to urban and rural elites. In future, the Manifesto pledged, no law would take effect without the Duma’s consent. This promise patently limited the Tsar’s powers, but nevertheless in the fundamental laws which gave shape to the new politics, he was still referred to as the ‘autocrat’. Besides, an upper house, the State Council, was placed alongside the Duma; half of it was to be appointed by the Tsar, while the other half was dominated by the nobility. An air of ambiguity surrounded the new politics from the outset: was this an autocracy or a constitutional monarchy?

The appearance of the Duma stimulated the formation of political parties as a link between the population and their representatives. Socialist parties were able to leave the underground and organize legally to contest elections. Professional people were best represented by the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) party, which favoured a parliamentary government, radical land reform, and far-reaching autonomy for the nationalities.